S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 151

Screen Murderer 47 – Search Party

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A small USB drive, the data inside which almost covered the entire organisation.

Early the next morning, expressions of gratitude came flooding in. Bao Sir was in high spirits, as it had been a long time since such a significant case had been solved.

However, amidst the excitement, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang couldn't shake the feeling that something was still amiss, especially Zhan Zhao.

In the past few days, they had gathered a massive amount of information, only to crack the case by retrieving a single USB drive. It felt like spending a fortune on a banquet, only to find that the complimentary fruit was the most delicious part.

Moreover, Zhan Zhao did the maths. In the end, they dismantled the entire New World game organisation, but after all that effort, there was no evidence to incriminate Wang Meiyun, and Qian Yu, who was behind her, wasn't linked to the case at all.

The most puzzling aspect was the deaths of Viper, Zhou Ping and Qian Fu.

All three had deadly chips implanted in their bodies, but none of the captured organisation members, including Old Wang, Dong and Yuan, had these chips.

The deaths of Zhou Ping, Qian Fu and Viper completely severed the possibility of incriminating Wang Meiyun and Qian Yu.

Particularly, Zhou Ping and Qian Fu had even tried to get Viper to implicate Wang Meiyun before they died...

Currently, the only ones left in their grasp were Secretary Zhang and Tang Xing.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both had a bad feeling, so they sent Ma Han and Zhao Hu to bring them in.

Not long after they left, the phone rang.

Zhan Zhao looked at the incessantly ringing phone, reluctant to answer it.

Bai Yutang pressed the speaker button, and Hu Zi's disheartened voice came through, "Boss, they're both dead! Same way as Viper."

Everyone frowned – There was no need to guess, they also had chips installed in their bodies.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang sat in the office, frowning – After almost half a month of hard work, they could summarise the situation...

After Dong Yuan's death, Wang Meiyun suddenly became the heir to the estate, competing with Dong Yuan's wife Anna, who was far away in a foreign country, for the Dong Group.

This led to the uncovering of a dark web gaming organisation, a large and long-standing organisation amassing wealth by playing games where human lives were the stakes... Now, the organisation was destroyed, and everyone involved in the previous case who knew Qian Yu's background was dead, leaving only Wang Meiyun.

"Qian Fu is Qian Yu’s brother." Bai Yutang felt that this was too ruthless, "Did Qian Yu eliminate even his own brother? Why?"

Zhan Zhao shook his head. "And why did Qian Fu and Zhou Ping want Viper to kill Wang Meiyun at the film festival? Were they instructed to do so, or did they act on their own, which cost them their lives?"

Bai Yutang began to prepare himself mentally. "Today is the film festival's opening. The red carpet event starts in the evening, followed by the official opening at night. The internet is flooded with news about the festival, with many competing films being promoted and holding press conferences. The Dong Group’s films, originally not of high quality, have gained attention due to Wang Meiyun and the recent series of events. How many bodies do you think will drop during Brother’s opening speech tonight?"

Zhan Zhao couldn’t help but laugh, watching the TV screen showing film festival programmes. He suddenly asked Bai Yutang, "Do you remember that film starring Wang Meiyun?"

Bai Yutang nodded. It was the film they first investigated, Don’t Open Your Eyes.

"The director and another lead actor of that film died, and the first connection to the New World game was through the director, Jin He." Zhan Zhao said. "Although that film isn’t in the festival, other Dong Group productions are. We initially suspected they might tamper with the films, and only discovered the game organisation because of Anna’s incident."

"What benefit does the destruction of this organisation bring to Qian Yu and Wang Meiyun?" Bai Yutang analysed. "Based on our previous deductions, Qian Yu and Wang Meiyun intended to take Dong Yuan’s place in the game."

"We were able to successfully dismantle the organisation mainly because we captured Chen Gui and Chen Fu, but in fact, those two blew themselves up." Zhan Zhao also found the coincidences suspicious, "Hiring those two to frame Anna was a plan that could easily be seen through, yet it conveniently led us to the USB drive."

Thinking of this, Zhan Zhao called the girl Zhao Jue had introduced to help them find the item.

When the call connected, the first thing the girl said was, "No refunds!"

Zhan Zhao quickly said, "I'm not asking for a refund, I want to ask you something."

"Mhmm." The girl let Zhan Zhao ask his question.

Zhan Zhao asked her how she found the USB drive.

The girl said it was a trade secret.

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment, "Let me ask differently. Do you think someone deliberately placed the USB drive there?"

After about three seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, she replied, "Yes!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances.

"Can you elaborate?" Zhan Zhao asked.

The girl said, "Sure, shall we meet?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged another silent glance – Meet?

"Let's meet at that trendy snack shop opposite your police station, in half an hour." With that, the girl hung up.

Bai Yutang was a bit speechless, "That shop hasn't closed down yet?"

"Is it the shop just across the street?" Jiang Ping, who came in from outside the office holding a lunchbox, overheard and chimed in, "They have new dishes now. It's said to have been bought by a new owner. Wow! It's now the number one trendy dessert shop in S City!"

Jiang Ping handed them a flyer as he spoke.

Bai Yutang took the flyer and looked at the various bizarrely named desserts... and a sense of strange familiarity washed over him.

Jiang Ping opened his lunchbox, revealing a mixed fruit and vegetable salad with two... poo-like things on top, along with a fly... which, of course, looked like it was made of chocolate.

Zhan Zhao curiously asked, "What's this?"

"The shop's signature dish! Poo salad." Jiang Ping pointed at the two poo-like things and said that they were mochi ice cream, super delicious, look at how many people are queuing outside.

Bai Yutang glanced out the window. Wow, there was a long queue outside the shop.

"With so many people in line... will we get a table?" Bai Yutang checked his watch, the girl had said to meet in half an hour.

Zhan Zhao also thought that the crowd clearly wouldn't clear out in half an hour.

Zhan Zhao called the girl to ask if they could meet somewhere else.

The girl said she didn't mind, but she wanted to eat the shop's signature dish.

Zhan Zhao was quick to grab the one Jiang Ping hadn't had time to eat yet and said no problem, come to the police canteen, we've already bought it for you."

The girl happily agreed.

Jiang Ping looked pitifully at Zhan Zhao – I queued up early this morning to buy that...

Zhan Zhao handed him a bag of chips, "Here! A fair trade."

Jiang Ping, still feeling aggrieved, sat at the computer munching on the chips.

Zhan Zhao called Zhao Jue to inquire about the girl's background.

Zhao Jue said she was like their SCI tech nerd, a computer whiz. She had three brothers, and together they formed a well-known team specialising in finding lost items, quite renowned and capable.

"Oh..." Zhan Zhao understood roughly.

Zhao Jue added that the four of them had good character, though they charged high fees, and they were worth collaborating with long-term. As long as you could win over the sister, the three brothers would be easy to handle.

Zhan Zhao couldn't help but ask, "Did you offend the sister? Why did she charge you double?"

"Er..." Zhao Jue mumbled vaguely, saying he was busy and would talk another day.

Zhan Zhao hung up the phone, and both he and Bai Yutang couldn't help but be curious – When did Zhao Jue offend a young girl?

Before long, they saw the same small scooter from yesterday arrive at the police station entrance.

Zhan Zhao instructed the officers downstairs to let her through, and soon, the chubby girl appeared at the door of the SCI office.

Entering, she began to look around, "So this is SCI, not bad..."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were quite polite, thanking her for her assistance as the data on the USB drive had led to many arrests yesterday.

The girl, called Liang Xiaoyu, though they weren't sure if it was her real name or an alias, had a quirky personality. Zhan Zhao guessed that her intelligence might be on par with Mia's.

Receiving the signature dish from the snack shop that Zhan Zhao had grabbed for her, Liang Xiaoyu's lips curled up, and she seemed in a good mood.

Seeing that he had succeeded, Zhan Zhao winked at Bai Yutang – It was the first time buying someone off with poo...

Bai Yutang sighed – Cat, enough...

With the girl happy, things would go more smoothly.

Liang Xiaoyu explained, "This USB drive was found at the garbage dump. Based on the clues you provided, the pocket was torn, so we guessed that the USB drive was most likely dropped on the road. There are sycamore trees in that area, so a USB drive falling on the ground could easily be swept up by street cleaners along with the fallen leaves. These leaves are usually transported to the garbage dump, so our first stop was the nearby garbage dump. My brother found it not long after he arrived, which was a bit eerie."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances – Eerie?

"Yeah, things don't usually go this smoothly!" Liang Xiaoyu said, scooping up a bite of mochi as she spoke.

Bai Yutang tried to avoid looking at what the girl was eating, reminding himself it was just mochi...

Zhan Zhao nudged Bai Yutang to look – There was a shrimp inside the mochi.

Bai Yutang felt queasy, suspecting the food had a twisted sense of taste and wondering if the new owner could be Zhao Jue... He tried to steer the conversation back, asking her to explain in detail.

"This USB drive has a plastic casing with severe surface wear as if it went through significant damage. But on closer inspection, the inside isn't damaged. The plastic surface has many scratch marks, to put it simply, it looks like someone deliberately rubbed it against a rough surface." Liang Xiaoyu shook her head. "Theoretically, an item swept to a garbage dump would get scratched, but USB drives are light. From our previous searches for similar items, they typically don't sustain such severe surface damage. It feels unnatural. Another thing is that my brother asked around, and this garbage dump is just a substation, processing collected garbage daily and sending it to the main station. Based on your clues, this USB drive has been missing for quite a while... the timing doesn't seem right."

After finishing her explanation, Liang Xiaoyu spread her hands, "Of course, there's always a chance of good luck, but based on our experience in finding things, there's a 60-70% chance that this USB drive was deliberately aged and disguised as a lost item, then placed at the garbage dump within a day."

Hearing this, Zhan Zhao smiled slightly and nodded at Liang Xiaoyu, "You've been a great help."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: May 26, 2024 by Angel

Edited: November 25, 2024 by Angel